I agree with you. Rocket here is not the same as you would find in say Italy. Nothing tastes peppery enough for me. But, I did have a nice arugula salad ONCE at Le Paradis. Not sure if they have it. The rocket that I buy at Pusateri's is most likely the best that I have had in Toronto. The packaged stuff is rubbish, no taste.

terroni does a great salad with arugula, tuna, red onion, tomato, and olive, dressed with balsamic and olive oil, served over chickpea farinata (kinda like firm grilled polenta, but made with chickpea flour). now, i wouldn't say that the salad is designed specifically to showcase the arugula, but all of the components work together really nicely and it's long been a favourite of mine.

We tried it out last night and what a wonderful arugula salad. We had the deluxe---all those flavours and textures and wonderful, piles of very fresh arugula. (We also tried the deluxe organic mixed greens and that was also wonderful----all that blue cheese and roasted peppers and both salads had such a generous amount of crunchy seeds.)

We also tried out other things, like the cheese grits (made with blue cheese and cheddar---so intense and chewy) and we each had a self-constructed bowl that was quite good also (esp with the green coconut milk curry.). The chocolate brownie for dessert was also pretty tasty. All in all, definitely will go back to this place! (The only thing that seemed a little odd to me--meant to ask and forgot---was why they have shrimp on their menu, given their sustainability goals and all...)

We had a lovely bresaola with rocket at Florentia on Mount Pleasant (the restaurant is reviewed in today's Globe). This was probably the best thing we ate (the roast chicken was dry and boring, an eggplant ravioli had an overly smokey-flavoured filling, although the pasta encasing it was lovely, and the ingredients in the snapper dish did not seem all that fresh).

I order arugula pretty much everywhere I go. I have had some good salads at some places (I think Caffe Doria's was in that category but the greens there aren't always immaculately fresh) but the one that sticks most in my mind is the hellum salad at Tabule on Yonge south of Eglinton. I'm not very talented at figuring out what is in salad dressings but I think there must be a good bit of lemon. It's so nice and tart, great contrast to the nutty arugula. And the cheese is very tasty too, of course.

The salads at Terroni are fantastic. In addition to the ricchia, they also have a special salad - can't remember the name but it's arugula with sliced strawberries, toasted almonds, capriccio (soft goat's milk cheese) and a truffled balsamic vinaigrette. It tastes like summer and it's delicious.

I've never experienced anything other than wonderfully fresh greens at Caffe Doria. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE their spring salad - arugula, pinenuts, avacado, cucumber and reggiano in a lovely light lemony vinegarette. Simple and deelish!Have it every time we go.

The mix of ingredients at CD is very nice. It's been about a year since I've been so maybe things are more consistent now; for awhile there, we were going once every couple weeks and I generally had to fish out some of the more "squishy" greens mixed in with the good stuff. Not a big deal but still left an impression.